1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to containers and in particular to containers for carrying and dispensing biological and pharmaceutical reagents and the like. The containers are especially useful in connection with performing in vitro diagnostic analyses.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Numerous containers are known in the art for holding and dispensing reagents. Notwithstanding the wide variety of configurations known, the presently available containers still exhibit numerous deficiencies. One problem area involves applying and reading labels on the containers. For example, when small amounts of reagent have been supplied in the past, small reagent containers have typically been used. These containers have small external surface areas and thus very little room has been available for proper labeling of the container. For both large and small containers, there has been a long standing problem regarding orienting one or a group of containers in such a way that their labels always face the user so that the user can readily read the label and thus select the appropriate reagent.
In addition to labeling problems, the prior art containers have been especially deficient with regard to the dispensing of small amounts of reagent. As mentioned above, small reagent volumes have typically meant small reagent bottles. Such bottles are difficult to handle and manipulate. In particular, it is difficult to pipette reagents, in many cases, radioactive reagents, from such small containers. Also, irrespective of the initial amount of reagent included in the container or the size of the container, in all cases it has been difficult to remove the last portion of the reagent from the bottom of the container by, for example, pipetting.